Sidetracked While Searching for Inga Paulson
…at noon the body of old Jerry Cowles with the head burned beyond almost all recognition, was found across the river in the gravel pit…the smell which goes up from Hinckley is a terrible one.
While scouring Canadian newspapers for any sign of Mrs Ingaborg Paulson, I came across this harrowing tale of a forest fire that ripped through northern Minnesota in the Manitoba Free Press, Vol XXII, No. 42, dated Thursday, September 13, 1894. The headline: PILES OF DEAD BODIES. You won’t read this in the newspapers of today.
The general executive committee in charge of the relief works in this section has made a report of the dead bodies recovered thus far as follows: Hinckley, 271; Sandstone, 77; Miller (often called Sandstone Junction), 15; between Skunk Lake and Miller, 12…total, 450(!) Following is a complete list of the dead at Sandstone: Peter Kallam, quarryman; Mrs. Peter Kallam and three children; Mrs Marion Greenfield and five children; Mr and Mrs Gus Anderson and three children…Peter England, quarryman, Mrs Peter England and seven children…Mr JA Johnson, merchant; Mrs JA Johnson, infant child and 12 year old boy…fourteen unrecognizable and fifteen not yet identified…
Everything at Sandstone has burned, the only thing left standing being the school house walls and big bank safe. The only living things to be seen there Sunday night when the relief party arrived were a horse and pig. Sixty-two bodies were buried thus far in town, not counting the numbers which have been found in the outlying country and buried where found.
The fire was seen by the Sandstone people four hours before it struck the town and everything was packed up in readiness to move to Kettle River, east of the village. Before any one was aware of the real danger, the fire came upon the town from the north, east and west and burned the whole town inside of five minutes. Many were unable to reach the river and died in the streets. A blacksmith was burned to a crisp in his shop where he was shoeing a horse, so sudden was the fire…Those who reached the river remained most of the night. The survivors are entirely destitute…whole families are wiped out.
Judge Nethaway, of Stillwater, has been one of the most active in relief work and has been all over the surrounding country…Seven miles northwest of Hinckley, he came to a spot where a farm house had stood. In front was a well and over to the left could be seen five human bodies and bodies of several animals. Nethaway went at once to the well and there found down in the bottom a little 12-year-old boy, in eight inches of water, who had lived there since Saturday with nothing to eat.
…at noon the body of old Jerry Cowles with the head burned beyond almost all recognition, was found across the river in the gravel pit…the smell which goes up from Hinckley is a terrible one. Where the depot stood was a burned, charred hand; farther down the tracks lay a woman’s limb while out in the surrounding country one finds human trunks, heads or bones. Late in the afternoon the body of a man with intestines exposed and body black as coal was brought into town along with a child’s fearfully burned body, and a man’s leg and shoe. All were thrown into one pine coffin and buried.